Pastorized Candidates

Ah, the sacred law of unintended consequences. Since the Reverend Mr. Wright damned America and pretty effectively kneecapped Sen. Obama, the clergy of each candidate has come under scrutiny.

I guess it was inevitable. This whole miserable campaign season started on a low note by examining Mitt Romney’s Mormonism—instead of his words, his record and his policies. Pundits and other Republican candidates wondered: What did the Mormon Church teach about polygamy? What kind of guy was Joseph Smith? When did they stop teaching that people of African origin were not only inferior but that a white marrying one should entail both being put to death?

Some of us hoped that religious questions had been put to bed by the election of John F. Kennedy. We hoped in vain.

The campaign and the subsequent election to congress of Keith Ellison, a Muslim, raised all hell. His loyalty as an American was questioned. His choice to be sworn in on a Quran was attacked—even by relatively mainstream people. Elected officials made dire warnings of what was in store for America now that we had an openly Muslim member of congress.

This led, quite naturally and unhelpfully, to the charge that Barack Obama was a Muslim. Sometimes the charge was that he was a secret Muslim and sometimes that he was an open Muslim. People acted on the presumption that his Muslim names implied his religion. I’m sure there must be moments when Barack may yearn to be just a generic Barry once again.

This Inquisition will end neither soon nor well. Now we are investigating the sermons of John McCain’s pastors. There is the Reverend Hagee who seems less than enthusiastic about the legitimacy of the Roman Catholic Church. There is the Reverend Parsley who not very sagely advocated prison for adultery. But since they are only endorsers and not the clergy of the congregation where McCain normally worships, it is an unfair comparison.

Fairer would be to look at the Reverend Dan Yeary. He is a traditional conservative Christian, strongly opposed to homosexuality, abortion and electing Democrats. Pastor Yeary has expressed some sympathy for the Reverend Wright and spoken of getting carried away in exuberance while in the pulpit. I’m sure his sermons will now be looked at more closely than he may have wished.

Is this to be the new standard? Candidates are responsible not only for what they do and what they say but what they hear? It is an interesting idea based, in my view, on a faulty premise.

The biblical Book of Ecclesiastes begins, in the normal if highly imperfect translation, with, “Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher.” And what greater vanity would there be than believing that anyone is influenced by the words of a preacher?

What is the influence of clergy from the pulpit? I mean if people actually listened and obeyed, if they were at all influenced by sermons, wouldn’t sermons stop and clergy no longer be needed? If we got the message and acted as our clergy of all our various faiths demanded, (you have to admit, an unlikely event), wouldn’t our ministers, priests, rabbis and imams have to find other work?

As Ecclesiastes further points out, “There is nothing new under the sun,” and we never get the simple message. With all of the sermons throughout our human history, there are really very few topics when you think about it. The main three are Sin, Forgiveness and Peace. The clergy mostly preach against sin. How does this seem to be working out? Have we rid the world of sin yet? They’re for Forgiveness. Apparently this is harder to do than it sounds. Peace? Of course, we are all for peace, and we’ll kill any who don’t understand peace as we do.

When I consider Sen. Obama and the Reverend Mr. Wright, I cannot conclude that Obama was saved or ruined any more than any other creature in a pew. To believe that having heard 20 years worth of sermons, some of which were angry in tone, have left Obama embittered, I would have to believe that 3,000 years of history has taught my people always to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with G-d.” I would have to believe that Christians got the pretty clear memo from Jesus that we cannot love G-d whom we have not seen, if we don’t love our brothers whom we have seen. I’d have to believe that the most repeated words in the Quran, and in daily Muslim prayers, “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” has inscribed mercy and compassion on every Muslim heart.

People go to their religious houses of worship for many reasons. Sometimes it is neighborhood and convenience. Sometimes it is social. Often it is for the esthetic of worship style—the preaching or the music. Sometimes it is tradition. People even go, or so I’m told, for purposes of business and status. There is little that we can predict about a person’s politics, outlook or moral character by their choice of congregations.

Despite this, we can now anticipate that all candidates will henceforth and forevermore be pastorized—blessed and cursed by the preaching they sit through. We seem to be in the absurd position that when clergy exhort us to good they are highly ineffectual, but when they promote bad ideas using terrible rhetoric they sway us like a mighty wind.